Nigerian authorities said Wednesday that security forces had freed 308 people held captive by armed groups, describing the operation as the largest rescue the country has carried out in a single day.
A spokesperson for President Bola Tinubu said the freed captives included 163 people taken during an earlier attack on the Woro community in Kwara state’s Kaiama district, along with 145 others abducted separately in Niger state. All were recovered from a forested area within Kainji Lake National Park in Niger state’s New Bussa district.
The Woro captives were seized during an assault earlier this year that drew widespread condemnation. Suspected militants reportedly targeted the village after residents failed to respond to a message announcing the gunmen’s plan to preach there. The attackers then set fire to homes and killed more than 165 people, according to accounts from the time, though authorities have not confirmed the full scale of the abductions that followed.
Officials said the rescue drew on a joint effort between Nigeria’s counter-terrorism agency, the armed forces, the domestic intelligence service and police.
The operation highlights the scale of Nigeria’s kidnapping crisis, which has flourished in poorly policed forest regions across the country’s north and center. Armed groups — ranging from ideologically driven militants to opportunistic criminal gangs — have increasingly turned abductions into a lucrative source of ransom income, with estimates putting proceeds in the millions of dollars over the past year.
The threat remains far from contained. Only days before the Kainji rescue, gunmen struck a village and a military post in Zamfara state, abducting dozens more people, including children — a reminder that despite Wednesday’s success, mass kidnappings continue to plague the region.
